The
Phillies v BoSox ‘Demolition
Derby’ turned out to be just that, Boston
demolished the Phillies in the first 2
games, the Phillies did however manage to
scrape out a win on the final day, by way of a Raul Ibanez homer and some
inventive base running by Jayson Werth.

The crowd continued to express the desires to ‘Beat LA’ even
though they were referencing a different sport. The Phillies
get a day off, before heading to Yankee
stadium, Charlie Manuel managed to play switcheroo with his starting
rotation so that Halladay and CC match up, not sure if this was
all Chuck’s doing or if there were any financial or other compensations
involved. Did I just infer that there may be some kind of bribing going on,
naaaa, I would never do that, but Sony Online Entertainment might
or at least that’s how I read it, might infer that money should make a difference
to official controlling bodies of sports.

How about a headline “World Cup Needs America, Like It Or
Not”, is this just someone trying to encourage the development of a
sport, or encourage the involvement for financial gain.

This head line was the headline of a blog post from the “Senior
Director of Global Public Relations” for “Sony Online
Entertainment”, yep way to go with the public relations there ‘Mr.
Big Shot’ actually I don’t know the guy, he may be a very nice person and
his name isn’t really Mr. Big Shot, it’s Mr. Scott Gulbransen,
and some of what he says maybe perfectly true, but it’s the end of his post that
my concern is with, he says:

“With a global recession, Americans and their wallets –
including the large television networks – throw more money at the
tournament than everyone else combined. FIFA and the World Cup
increasingly need American interest and money to keep the expensive show
afloat. Yes, it might be the world’s most popular sport, but America is
its richest and most important benefactor.”

This is why players of the sport stay in this country to play the game, so
they can benefit from all the big bucks that are invested so readily and easily
into the sport. (note the sarcasm).

I would probably agree that most Americans are going to say, ‘yeah and what’s
wrong with that statement’, to someone who was not born here, who has
experienced how people have over the years perceived Americans, this does
nothing more than play into the typographical role of the rich arrogant American
who believes throwing money at it will get them preferential treatment, the same
way a lot of Americans have seen the Yankee
organization. The humorous part of this post was the closing statement, where he
said:

“For once, this non-soccer fan will be rooting for our US
team to kick some arrogant international soccer booty. Even if that
means I have to wake up at four in the morning to watch it.”

Something like this from an everyday person, would probably be excusable,
even laughable, after all it is a free country with freedom of speech, but let
me remind you this came from someone claiming to work for what could be
considered a very large global corporation and their job is high up in global
public relations for that corporation, so to me this sounds more like a gripe
from a company that wasn’t able to ‘BUY’ it’s own way, or even rights to a FIFA game, say World Cup 2010.

Yes my post also sounds like a gripe, but I am not associated with a large
corporation, my post will not receive preferential promotional treatment from a
website that seems to pay attention to the bigger names, now it’s grown, and
honestly it just goes to show that corporate is in the belief that it can buy whateveror into whatever it wants whenever it wants. You can read the
full post from the man from Sony Online Entertainmenthere

Peter…maybe “football” is better off not becoming popular here. Not if we want to keep it the way you and I have come to love it. The “American” spin on these games already has me cranky. We just don’t get it here so don’t even bother. We’ll just try and imperialize the game and tweak it to make it more American consumer friendly. I do not think you nor I want that for Football/soccer. Of course you have to spend the money to get the good players here. BUT the TV networks want commercial time. Football doesn’t fit that model.
mike

Mike – Football will remain the number one sport around the world, the fact that most Americans don’t understand will mean they don’t know why its the number one sport either… oh well

Emma – LOL I hear ya so little time…

Matt – If your a soccer fan the hype isn’t fake it’s a once every 4 year competition, but if you don’t like it or haven’t grown up with it then yep it would be like trying to force the superbowl or world series on the rest of the world